However, a reader wrote in recommending it. So we went to explore.

It’s pitched rather upmarket (by the way – have you noticed that Richmond drink prices in general are clearly more than in the West End? – we must be in one of the most expensive places to live in the entire  country).

But it is very pleasant. Large, busy but civilised, friendly but very courteous service. Truly excellent Doom Bar bitter (£3.20) when we went, and a very good French Chardonnay by the glass (large glass £5.70).

It’s also a gastropub, and the menu looks very very interesting. We didn’t eat there on this occasion, but when we do get round to it you will hear about it here. The reader who pointed us to The Duke was very complimentary about the food.

So there it is. A real and refreshing change from the same old Richmond town centre pubs. We intend to go there again, and thanks to the reader who brought it to our attention. We’re just sorry it took us two years to see what was right under our noses.

THE DUKE PUBLIC HOUSE & DINING ROOM
2 DUKE STREET, RICHMOND TW9 1HP

0208 940 4067

http://www.thedukerichmond.co.uk/

Riversniffers’ No 1 son is quick on his feet. In fact when he was younger, a family friend used to call him “Billy Whiz”, after the character in the Beano.

The boy has never trained properly and never had any coaching, but he’s always done well at school and cadet running. Then someone suggested he try his luck in the annual Cabbage Patch 10.

The Cabbage Patch is a pub near Twickenham station, run by Frank Dupree and his daughters Elaine and Jan. 

Frank was for a long time a governor of Clarendon School in Hampton. He is a great supporter of community causes and since 1982 he has helped to promote and organise what has now become a major fund raising event for the school.

As the Cabbage Patch 10 website says:

“The Cabbage Patch 10 mile race is one of the flattest and best 10 milers in the country (Richard Nerurkar set an all time British record of 46 mins 2 secs in 1993). Starting and finishing in Twickenham the course follows a loop, crossing the river in Kingston and Richmond and as always race HQ is the Cabbage Patch pub in Twickenham.”

So on Sunday 19^th October the Riversniffer family accompanied our boy to Twickenham for a 10:00am start.

With approx 1500 entrants the start is quite hectic

Volunteer race marshalls help to organise the event and the police help to manage the traffic

Once the race has started, the runners go down Cross Deep, along to Hampton Wick, across Kingston Bridge, up the towpath on the other side, past Ham House, across Richmond Bridge and back to Twickenham to finish at York House.

The approach to the finish is along the pavement outside York House -  it is zoned off with barriers to keep the crowd from mixing with the runners. This chap had been cycling on the pavement and found himself funnelled across the finish line with the runners…

We managed to get a picture of the first three finishers…

1^st        Time: 0:48:28                         Scott Overall               Blackheath & Bromley Harriers

2^nd       Time: 0:49:23                         Moumin Geele             Newham & Essex Beagles

3^rd        Time: 0:53:13                         James Trapmore          Shaftesbury Barnet Harriers

The rest of the contestants arrived over the next hour or so, and long before the last stragglers finished the Riversniffers party were ready for a drink and something to eat. Where else should we go but the Cabbage Patch?

The Cabbage Patch

The Cabbage Patch is a vast pub. You might expect the service to be perfunctory, especially with the place being jammed solid after the race. But the service is cheerful, and the staff coped really well.

Our party duly got stuck into pints, and the beer was pronounced cracking. After a while we ordered some food – 3 x burgers and chips, 1 x salmon salad, one filo prawn starter and bangers and mash. Simple pub food, but when it arrived we were really astonished how good it was – great prawns, real homemade burgers, fantastic chips and the best bangers and mash that Riversniffer Senior had ever encountered. They might have been cooking for four people rather than the hundreds that were actually there.

The Cabbage Patch is big. But it is friendly and cheerful, the food is done with real care and it is really good value (see the menu on their website here).

In most operations the tone comes from the top, and with a community-minded landlord like Frank Dupree we think we can guess where the Cabbage Patch gets its positive feel from. Highly recommended.

P.S. How did the boy do?

Nonchalent youth. No training, no coaching, no running club. No race strategy either. He just ran round, and finished inside the top ten percent of all the finishers – and he wasn’t even out of breath at the end.

So now he’s joined a running club and with training and coaching we look forward to seeing how he does next year. Riversniffer Senior is looking forward to the bangers and mash already. Hope to see you there.

Parvinu has now been open for a couple of months. Mr & Mrs Dipsophile visited on a recent Friday evening to see how it was getting on.

We’ve remarked on the wine list before (see below) but now we’ve found something we like drinking (the Chilean chardonnay, £18.50) and we spent a relaxed half hour getting the feel of the place.

It was fairly full, with a very pleasant crowd eating and drinking in a relaxed atmosphere. There were even groups of people drinking and chatting at the great oval dining table, which made it look like a party in some vast Italian villa – really unusual.

Parvinu is a very distinctive place and there is certainly nowhere like it in the area. Given the current economic climate, the upmarket positioning is brave, but it was busy the night we went and we hear that it is generally well frequented.

We hope it continues to do well; in the interest of Parvinu moving from good to great, we put together a (last) list of things we thought could be improved:

The bar. We’re not sure it’s a good idea to have people eating there because it makes it difficult for people to buy a drink – and when they do get served the transaction tends to annoy the people eating at the bar. We would remove the bar seats to give drinkers a clear run.

The flat lighting in the main room. We think that more upbeat lighting could make the main room an absolutely stunning space, rather than the rather gloomy one it is at present.

The soup posters. We still don’t like these, but totally accept that, as Homer Simpson said “beauty is in the eye of the beer holder”

Otherwise, that’s it – no more gripes. We look forward to future visits and will be actively looking to add the “cool” tag to this place as and when it achieves that hard-to-define status.

P.S. We still haven’t eaten there, but some people have added  comments at the end of this post. More comments would be welcome, both on the food and in general.

P.S.S. Parvinu’s wine list and menu are on their website, here

 *****************************************************************

The Riversniffers are divided on this new addition to the St Margarets drinking/eating scene. Some reckon it will be a great success. Others have their doubts. So Dipsophile hand-picked a panel of seasoned drinkers from the editorial team and paid a visit on a weekend lunchtime. These are the findings of the group.

 What we like

The space It is big – and the furniture, fixtures and fittings are of high quality and give an upmarket impression. Large gilt mirrors, burgundy leather sofas, zinc and wood-topped tables make for a club-like atmosphere.

The spectacular oval dining table – set in its own semi-private area, seats 15 and would be great for a celebrating a significant event.

The loos – magnificent

The photographs – fabulous, distinctive black and white photographs on some of the walls

What we’re not keen on

The lighting – is subdued to the point of gloom. The lighting is so dim that we found ourselves chasing round the room looking for a light to read the wine list by. We also found the little pendant lights over the tables irritating, as they barely enable the reading of menus and generally seeing what you are eating/drinking.

The Riversniffers thought that the lighting should be more dramatic, with pools of bright light contrasting with darker areas to give a more upbeat feel to the place.

The posters on the wall – we thought the pop art posters on the wall clashed with the club-like atmosphere of the rest of the space. Bare walls would actually be an improvement on what’s currently there.

The wine list – is extensive, but our panel found it to be pricey and to some extent obscure. What do we mean by that?

In the UK at present the most popular white wines would probably be sauvignon blanc, chardonnay and maybe Pino Grigio; in reds, maybe Rhone, Rioja or some variety of (ordinary) claret. These volume tipples may be regarded as something of a cliché – and our guess is that Parvinu are trying to avoid being clichéd. Indeed, their wine list is rich in regional varietals.

But if you’re out for the evening with a bunch of friends and you’re looking for something that is familiar to most of the group, what might you choose? Well in whites, the cheapest chardonnay is a Chilean at £18.50, the cheapest sauvignon blanc is £19.50 and the lowest priced French chardonnay (a Chablis) is £32. There isn’t a Pino Grigio. In reds, there’s a Cote du Rhone at £23, a Rioja at £27 and a claret at £62 (admittedly a Grand Cru Classe 1997!)

In fairness we should leave the fabulous claret out of this debate. But we suspect the rest of the prices are slightly beyond the range of most everyday wine drinkers.

They’re also more than the local competition. For example, in an establishment not far from Parvinu you can get a Chablis for £16, just half the price. I suspect the Parvinu example would be better quality but for everyday social drinking would you rather have one glass or two for the same money?

Conclusion (for now)

Parvinu is aimed firmly at an upmarket clientele, with pricing to match. Whether this positioning survives in the current economic climate remains a subject of debate among the Riversniffers.

Any comments?

We wish Parvinu success, but we feel they may need to tune the offering. Riversniffers would be particularly interested in your comments (especially if you’ve eaten there, which we haven’t had a chance to do yet).

 

Dipsophile has been drinking in this pub for more than thirty years. Not continuously, you understand (Oliver Reed-like figure lurches briefly across the reader’s mind), but on and off since John Foster was the landlord in the Seventies.

To read the press today you’d think binge drinking was a modern invention. But Richmond folk have always liked a drink (just look at the number of pubs in the town) – and many of the older Riversniffers learned their binge drinking in the White Swan in the Seventies.

In those far off days, gatherings of 15 or so Riversniffers were quite usual. Massive rounds were bought, packets of cigarettes chain-smoked, even yards of ale drunk at the bar. Sometimes sessions lasted from opening time (5:30pm, for those that can’t remember when pubs had an opening time) until chucking-out time, even later if there was a “lock-in”.

Then people got in their cars and drove home.

At this distance it all seems surreal – like an episode from “Life on Mars”. One can’t believe today how politically uncorrect it all was – but it did happen.

But we digress. Back to the point, which is to let you know what the White Swan is like today.

We had guests for the weekend, and we booked a table for four.

The menu is typical gastropub (which for us is a good thing) and it was varied enough for us to have a hard time choosing. In the end, all four of us had the filo prawn starters. Then for main course two of us chose the salmon fillets with couscous, one the chicken breast stuffed with feta and one the lamb chump.

The starters arrived in very short order, but didn’t raise any great enthusiasm. Although perfectly OK, the filo prawns looked and tasted a bit average.

The main course was a different story. Decent sized portions, beautifully cooked and very satisfying – so much so that when it came to the pudding we could only manage one (very generous) portion of chocolate cake between the four of us.

Drinks included some top-notch London Pride, a good bottle of Pino Grigio and really good coffee with the pudding.  Service throughout was attentive and friendly.

The bill, including a 12.5% service charge (added for tables of four or more) came to £120. For four, we thought this was reasonable given the quality of food, drink and service.

The Verdict

The current management arrived four years ago, and they run the place with relaxed informality. They also manage the very difficult feat of keeping the pub and the eating sides of the operation in balance, so that both drinkers and diners feel at home.

The place is probably better run now than it ever was, and we can recommend it unhesitatingly, either as an interesting and civilised pub or as a place to eat, or both.

Afterword

After writing the above, Dipsophile thought that he was missing something. It was only after some reflection that he realised what it was.

The White Swan is in fact one of the few (the very few) places in Richmond which is “cool”. On the Top Gear “cool wall”, the White Swan would be way over on the right hand end. It is futile to try to pin down exactly what makes it cool – it just is. You’ll know what I mean if you go.

Final thoughts

If you are eating you should book ahead, as they get quite busy evenings and weekends.

The pub is also not that large and these days it does have to balance the pub and the dining aspects, so if fifteen of you want to re-run one of those “Life on Mars” binge sessions then you should probably choose one of the town centre pubs. Leave the White Swan to go its own, cool way.

The White Swan, Old Palace Lane, Richmond, TW9 1PG

Tel: 020 8940 0959